Most living beings are reluctant to harm those that resemble them.

If someone were to hand me a large sum of money and a dagger, asking me to kill the animal before me, I could do it.

It’s not that I have no aversion to taking a life, but there was enough value to overcome that.

I might hesitate a bit, but I could do it.

If I just close my eyes and endure it once, I could live the rest of my life in luxury, couldn’t I?

I could plunge the knife into the animal’s body.

“……”

Then, if that someone offered me ten times the previous amount to kill a human this time, could I do it?

Holding the dagger just like before, I stand before a human.

Unlike with the animal, my hand starts to shake.

My eyes meet those of the human before me.

Their body, bound all over, shaking their head violently with tears in their eyes, seemed to be begging me not to do it.

If I stab them, they’ll feel pain, right?

There will probably be blood too.

I might have nightmares, and I could live the rest of my life plagued by guilt.

I dropped the dagger in my hand.

To conclude, I couldn’t kill a human.

More precisely, I was reluctant to kill a living being that resembled me.

And,

Now that time has passed, and I’m no longer human, I’ve become capable of killing humans.

I didn’t feel as much aversion to murder, nor did I feel much guilt.

I didn’t ignore the weight of the life I had taken, but I had to survive first.

When I thought it was for my own survival, I didn’t hesitate much.

It was strange.

Wasn’t I trembling at the thought of killing just one person until yesterday?

It’s not like my personality has changed much compared to then.

What’s different between the me then and the me now?

I fell into deep contemplation.

Not long after, I was able to find the answer.

At some point, I had stopped recognizing humans as my own kind.

At some point, I had stopped thinking of humans as resembling me.

Then, now that I’ve become a monster, could I kill monsters that resemble me?

It’s an old question.

***

Exterminating monsters was an extremely difficult task for Iria.

When she tried to swing her sword, her hand stiffened, and when she tried to use magic, the spell stopped just before casting.

She was hesitating.

Although they might not look like her, they were the same kind, with magical energy flowing through their bodies.

Seeing Iria hesitate like this, Lucia unexpectedly spoke up.

“I didn’t see you as the type, but are you perhaps a pacifist? Like, you can’t even kill a single ant?”

“……”

“I’m not trying to say anything. I’m just curious. If you don’t want to answer, then don’t.”

There was no intention behind the question.

It’s just that it seemed a bit contrasting to the violent Iria she had seen until now, so she asked.

But even to this simple question, Iria seemed to be lost in deep thought.

Having observed Iria closely during the training period, Lucia felt she was starting to understand what kind of person she was.

Iria was silent, but she wasn’t ignoring the question.

She was just taking time to ponder the answer, as she was naturally a cautious person.

Then, she instead asked Lucia a question.

“Is there a reason we have to kill them?”

“A reason to kill them?”

“Yes.”

Lucia thought for a moment, then gave her answer.

“There isn’t. We just kill them because we have to. But there’s also no reason not to kill them. These things are dangerous if we leave them alone. We kill them before they attack humans.”

“……”

Monsters attack humans.

It’s because it’s their instinct.

So, humans kill monsters before that happens.

It was a rational reason.

But listening to it made her feel uncomfortable.

Was it because she was a monster?

Are monsters evil because they kill humans?

Then, are humans good even if they kill monsters without reason?

In fact, there might not have been any good or evil between the two races from the beginning.

Aren’t they both just trying to survive?

If they keep fighting like this, only the stronger ones will remain.

It’s the natural law of nature.

Iria thought as she looked at the corpses of her fallen kin.

The reason they died was because they were weak.

She passed by, looking down at them with eyes tinged with a bit of pity.

“Well, you can be like that if you lack experience. I was like that at first too.”

Lucia patted Iria’s shoulder as if to say it was understandable.

She was a noble’s child who had received early education since childhood.

Rather, hesitating like Iria was a normal reaction for an ordinary girl.

It’s just that it didn’t match the image she had shown usually.

“If you really can’t do it, just support from the back. I’ll do it.”

“……”

Lucia readied her sword in front of the approaching horde of monsters, and Iria grasped a low-grade magic stone.

Although the number of combatants had been reduced to one, the training continued smoothly.

Iria was fulfilling her role from the side, even if she wasn’t attacking.

She would bind the monsters’ movements with wind, and Lucia cut them down.

-Slash.

That’s how the monsters in the cave were dying.

The sound of them being cut echoed in the enclosed space.

Watching the monsters being mercilessly slaughtered, Iria felt an indescribable emotion.

There wasn’t even time to be surprised that such an emotion still existed within her.

It was just a purely unpleasant feeling.

***

I saw my kind for the first time.

The impression was a bit different from what I had thought.

They didn’t look like me, but rather closer to monsters.

Some looked similar to wolves, and some looked more squishy, like jelly.

Although they looked very different from me, I could still tell.

They were indeed my kind.

Magical energy flows through their bodies, and they move with the same characteristics as me.

Above all, my body recognized them as my kind.

Once I realized this, I became unable to harm them.

Most living beings can’t attack those that resemble them.

And it seemed the same for them too.

The monsters didn’t attack me.

Did they also recognize me as one of their kind?

Since coming here, I haven’t received any attacks yet.

“Come to think of it, isn’t it strange that the monsters don’t seem to come at Iria? They were rushing at me like crazy. Is it a difference in our constitution?”

Rena harbored suspicions.

Lucia also felt something odd about it, but she didn’t know the reason.

But I knew.

Because I’m also a monster, I could read their behavior patterns.

I’m not sure if she’s aware of it herself, but Rena has a constitution that monsters love.

She smelled better than other humans.

Rena had good blood.

If I were them, I probably would have gone for Rena before Lucia too.

A sweet scent had been flowing from beside me for a while, and I was even having trouble resisting it.

I decided not to go near her when I was on an empty stomach like now.

“More than that, this place is really deep. Are caves usually like this?”

Rena said while recording the cave’s ecology on paper.

Come to think of it, we’ve been in this cave for several hours now.

We did take some time dealing with monsters along the way, but should it have taken this long to reach the end?

I wasn’t the only one who felt something was off, as this time Lucia spoke up.

“Rather than a cave, it’s more like a tunnel someone deliberately dug out.”

“A tunnel?”

“I’m not sure, but looking at the marks on the walls, it seems that way. It’s probably an artificially made place.”

“Hmm.”

After hearing Lucia’s words, I closely examined the cave walls.

I couldn’t really tell just by looking.

It would have been nice if I could read the memories of the walls, too.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t read the memories of inanimate objects.

It’s because they don’t have eyes to meet.

If this place was artificially made as Lucia said, I wanted to know what kind of space it was.

“……!”

Wait a minute.

Eyes?

I sat down for a moment and touched the head of a dead monster.

“Iria?”

And slowly, I met its eyes.

The dead monster was already cold, but if it was once a living being, I could read its memories.

In this cold, dark cave.

What kind of memories would a monster living in such a place have?

Where did they come from, and why are they here?

I focused on the consciousness of the dead monster.

And.

“……”

I realized this place wasn’t safe as Eve had said.

There was something dangerous underground here.

Actually, I had been thinking it was strange from halfway through.

The deeper we went, the denser the magical energy became, and it wasn’t a concentration that low-level monsters could emit.

There was no time to explain verbally.

It was too complex for that.

I pulled on Lucia’s sleeve.

“I think we need to get out of here now.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“……Quickly.”

This place is like the dwelling of some being.

Judging from the memory of the monster I just read, it was very close by now.

-Rumble.

Just as I was trying to pull Lucia and Rena towards the exit, the ground shook.

Maybe the entire cave was shaking.

I turned my head and faced something I didn’t really want to encounter.

A massive shadow revealed itself from the deep darkness.

It was like the source of the magical energy that covered the cave.